China Is Turning Its Fish Breeding Grounds Into Smartphone Factories | Mother Jones

China Is Turning Its Fish Breeding Grounds Into Smartphone Factories | Mother Jones:



 "But it has also put severe pressure on the country's ability to feed its population. More than 40 percent of China's arable land has been degraded by some combination of erosion, salinization, or acidification—and nearly 20 percent of it is polluted with heavy metals, whether by industrial effluent, sewage, excessive farm chemicals, or mining runoff. These are chilling numbers, given that China has just 0.2 acres of arable land per capita—less than half of the global average and a quarter of the average for OECD member countries. (The United Sates has 1.2 acres per person.)

Now wetlands destruction is threatening the nation's fisheries. No wonder it's looking elsewhere for food production, investing in farmland in Africa, South America, and Central Asia, and buying up 64 percent of the globe's internationally traded soybeans.  "